Colin Woodard

State of Franklin. This was a new aspiring state formed by Appalachia in parts of Tennessee and Pennsylvania, which did not survive, due to being reabsorbed by the other states. Andrew Jackson came from the region of Franklin, though the State was gone before his presidency.

In the author's opinion, the Civil War was fought not between "north and south" but between a Yankeedom-led coalition and a Deep South-Tidewater coalition. "The South" did not exist as a unified political entity before the Civil War. Appalachia was divided.

Jefferson Davis was urged to keep secession peaceful, and ignored the advice.

The Appalachians despised both Yankeedom and the Deep South. Whether each subsection of Appalachia joined the "North" or "South" depended on which region they hated more; the most obvious example is that the Appalachian part of Virginia seceded to form West Virginia, and ally with the Union, because those particular Appalachians considered the Tidewater aristocrats more their enemy than the Yankees. Yankeedom had no use for Appalachia either (as shown in their later attempts to "civilize" the Appalachians); but, then, all regions despised Appalachia for one reason or another.

More than one region wanted to secede before or during the Civil War. The Midlands and Appalachia wanted to form a separate Central Confederacy.

The reason Midland culture won the American heartland is continued German immigration.

California: development, and sub-cultures.
Why the "Left Coast" [yes, the author names the Pacific Northwest that] is often politically aligned with New England.
Why there tends to be a culture clash between northern, central and southern California. (same reason)

American settlement of Tejas. At one time while Mexico controlled Texas, it did not admit Americans; they were illegal immigrants. Appalachians in particular blatantly ignored Mexican law to stream into Texas. Which gives the contemporary issue some historical perspective.

Winston. Part of Alabama tried to form another political entity, the Free State of Winston. Obviously, it didn't survive either. The author strongly implies it was an "outlaw" state in the sense of being based entirely on several kinds of illegal activity (mainly ignoring Mexican law to immigrate to Texas, as noted above).

Texas sub-cultures. The starkly different sub-cultures in different parts of Texas are due to being settled by at least four different regions: Deep South, Appalachia, El Norte, and Midlands (in the Panhandle). President Lyndon Johnson was culturally Appalachian. (Which gives context to stories I've read elsewhere about regional culture-based friction between Johnson and the Kennedys.)

The Great Wave of immigrants in the 19th century avoided Deep South, Tidewater, Appalachia, and El Norte. The reason is that those regions' governments and social systems had nothing to attract immigrants.

Recent non-ethnic and abstract concepts of Americanism (e.g., America being a place where one has the most freedom to fulfill one's potential) are strongest on/in the Left Coast and the Far West.

Where and from whom the melting pot concept originates.

Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Yankeedom recast Puritans as champions of religious freedom.

Yankeedom and the Deep South had/have vastly different conceptions of Protestantism. cWoodard repeatedly emphasizes that Yankeedom saw salvation and freedom on the level of the community rather than individuals, whereas the Deep South's form of Protestantism was much more individualistic. Yankee Protestantism's lesser interest in the individual's relationship with God is owing to the strength of Yankee Calvinism, though Woodard does not expound on that except to say the individual's fate was seen as already decided.

As the Yankee culture secularized, only the utopian crusading/reforming urges survived, because they were stronger than the culture's faith in God. It is therefore hard not to conclude that the Southern form of Protestantism was stronger, because it has outlasted the Yankee form. It's for a reason that most people now tend to associate Baptists with the South; and it's for a reason that the "Congregationalist" church in New England long ago ceased to exist in its original form and theology, although many Protestant churches in America have a congregationalist polity.
The author explains that many Yankees turned to other faiths, especially Unitarianism, as a rebellion against the more coercive nature of the Yankee Christian culture. My interpretation: the Yankee Christian culture essentially ate itself. (The Yankee emphasis on salvation and freedom at the community level makes it plausible and appropriate to speak of all this in collective terms.) These developments can be seen as a cautionary tale against culturally enforced Christianity; against emphasizing a society's relationship with God more than the individual relationship; and against a society seeing itself as God's chosen.

As the South became reactionary, Yankeedom, New Netherlands and the Left Coast became more liberal.

The origin and characteristics of Deep South plantation slavery can be traced to one specific place—Barbados. Deep South plantation slavery originated with wealthy Barbadian planters, who had created on that island a hellhole notorious for its cruelty. The Deep South was a conscious effort to replicate Barbadian planter society in America. At least one Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton, was Barbadian. I think the book also cited financier Robert Morris (who, interestingly, worked closely with Hamilton in blatantly unethical financial speculation schemes) as Barbadian, but I can't quite remember. The Barbadian aristocrats like Hamilton tended to display other sins—naked greed and (less emphasized by the author) sexual perversity.

Appalachian individualism and its political implications. Woodard repeatedly describes the Appalachians as individualistic but "hedonistic" (I believe he used a compound phrase that might have been "hedonistic individualism"). Essentially, an amoral individualism bereft of any religious dimension or idealistic quality. At some point, Woodard claims Appalachian culture is the emotional origin or center of American libertarianism--the ethos, not necessarily the political movement; essentially, that Appalachians were libertarian before libertarianism was cool. I'm skeptical of this, and fortunately, Woodard does not proceed very far into in a dubious attempt to tie Appalachian culture to today's Libertarians.